There has been a lot of talk about Star Trek in the last week around the web and we have currated some of the most interesting bits for the Great Links, starting off with how The Next Generation is influencing a multi-billion dollar film franchise. We also have Trek news from Jeff Bezos, some fun Trek-related videos from TV around the globe and much more. So, buckle up for this week in Trek.

How Star Trek: The Next Generation helps the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was interviewed this week by Entertainment Weekly and the discussion turned to wrapping up arcs for some of the characters in the upcoming film Avengers: Infinity War. The man in charge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe said he learned a lesson from the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, that you don’t necessarily have to kill off a character to close their character arc, saying:

When we talk about resolution or a character’s story ending, are we necessarily talking about death?
People always will jump to that. That’s not necessarily what we’re talking about. I talk a lot, because I’m a big-ass nerd, about Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things.” That to me is one of the best series finales ever. That wasn’t about death. Picard went and played poker with the crew, something he should have done a long time ago, right?

Marvel is learning lessons from TNG

Bezos weighs in on Kirk v Picard

Amazon founder – and huge Star Trek fan with cameo in Star Trek Beyond – Jeff Bezos ran into Sir Patrick Stewart at the Oscars last weekend, and took the opportunity to share his thoughts (via Twitter) on the eternal Trekkie debate: Kirk v Picard. The billionaire is going with Picard.

Kirk meets Bones scene redone by cartoon voice stars

On this week’s episode of the Nerdist show all about animation – Talking Toons – host and voice actor Rob Paulson (Pinky of Pinky and The Brain, among many other voices) was joined by Butch Hartman (creator of shows like The Fairly Oddparents and Danny Phantom) and the pair took the time to recreate a scene from the 2009 Star Trek movie, with Paulson playing Kirk as Carl Wheezer from Jimmy Neutron, and Hartman doing McCoy as Keswick from his show T.U.F.F. Puppy.

Fan videos of the week: All the “not doctors” + How does the USS Defiant dock?

This week EC Henry, who makes some insightful videos on YouTube, has a fun look at all the things the Star Trek doctors aren’t.

Another interesting YouTube channel that produces some deep nerding on Trek and other pop culture things is Junkball Media. This week they turned their gaze on the USS Defiant, and specifically how it actually docks.

Of course Star Trek is a global phenomenon, and so this week we bring you some news about what people are saying about Trek around the world. First up, all month long the Space Channel in Canada (home to Star Trek: Discovery) is airing ‘Star Trek Movie Mondays,’ with a new Star Trek feature film every Monday. Tomorrow will be The Wrath of Khan (9e, 6p). And as part of their Trekkiing out all month, there was a segment this week on the Space Channel series Innerspacewith a debate over which is better, Wrath of Khan or The Search for Spock, which you can see below.

Star Trek has also popped up in Germany, on the comedy series Die Anstalt (The Institution). The show did a Star Trek-themed skit about Global Warming, featuring celebrity scientist Professor Harald Lesch (known to German Trek fans for presenting a series of Star Trek science segments for the German SciFi channel). You can watch the Die Anstalt sketch below.

Infinity Wars: Even more Avengers assemble to repel an even bigger space invaders horde.

March 11, 2018 7:59 pm

Marja

Sitting watching “Black Panther” all I could think was, “How I prefer a STORY like this, with one character who’s changing his world for the better against really big odds.” When the stakes are personal, fiction is so much more interesting.

For me, Avengers movies are fun for the occasional throwaway comic line and comedy between characters; for my friend who works in FL’s state government, well, he loves all the destruction for cathartic reasons. Plus he loves CGI-fests.

March 12, 2018 10:54 am

Phil

Haven’t been able to bring myself to see Black Panther, can’t fight the impulse that if you’ve seen one origin story, you’ve seen them all. When Dr. Strange hit Netflix, I had to turn it off at about the twenty minute mark, it was that predictable.

March 12, 2018 11:12 am

ML31

Then skip Black Panther, Phil. It’s your standard by the numbers action flick. Nearly ever cliche box is checked and the audience can see everything coming from miles away. Even the joke lines were terrible. At least Dr. Strange dealt with the meta-physical world to keep things somewhat interesting.

March 12, 2018 2:25 pm

albatrosity

Disagree with ML31. Black Panther is one of the few movies around today that challenges you, with very intriguing characters and well-defined motivations. It’s probably Marvel’s best film, at least that I’ve seen.

March 13, 2018 6:05 am

ML31

Albatrosity, I’m curious how a movie where nearly every single plot point is an action movie cliche can be challenging to an audience? Particularly if that audience has seen at least 4 other big budget action movies. I get that you enjoyed it. A lot of people have. Even I felt it had a couple of moments. But to say it was “challenging”… Just can’t see someone thinking that unless this was their first action movie they’ve ever seen.

March 13, 2018 7:19 am

kmart

Haven’t seen it yet, but I would guess it would be a matter of executing the tried-and-true conventions in a superior fashion, or throwing one or two fresheners into that mix in a smart way. I’ve read that the antagonist in PANTHER has a genuine point of view, one that audience members can relate to and even empathize with, and for me that always plussing a film up from the standard, even if everything else is by rote. I certainly wouldn’t own or even rewatch QUESTOR TAPES if not for the fact that I find the antagonist so compelling, and believe him to be the true hero of the piece. Likewise, Neeson’s character in BATMAN BEGINS espouses a point of view I can buy into in large part, and the way he accepts his fate is also in character and memorable.

March 14, 2018 8:01 am

ML31

That’s a good guess, kmart. But having seen the film I can tell you that guess is incorrect. There was nothing superior about how it handled the cliche ridden plot. It’s no fun when you see everything coming. In fact, I went to see the movie mainly because of the positive buzz it got. I went in, saw the set up and thought, “if this were a standard by the numbers action movie then we all know how things will unfold. This movie has gotten a lot of praise for being non standard and unique. So I can’t wait to see how they change things up.” As the movie progressed, every cliche action movie check box was clicked. And the further things went, the more disappointed I got and the more I was wondering why this movie got the buzz it got. There was literally NOTHING unique or special about it.

March 14, 2018 9:36 am

kmart

Hmm. My takeaway from the very first ads for BP was that visually, the thing was an overly-stylized mess, but that they must have something going on in the content to make the whole thing hang together. Now you’ve got me wondering if this is going to be like how I perceived SKYFALL and CASINO ROYALE – movies that were incredibly stupid that most every filmgoer and critic loved and even made excuses up to defend. (then again, I know there are DC devotees who hate Nolan’s BATMAN BEGINS, a POV that I completely don’t understand, so I guess I gotta make allowances for diverse viewpoints.)

I knew there was a reason why I love Kevin Feige/MCU so much! Nice to know he’s a big Star Trek nerd as well! It makes me want to watch All Good Things again. :)

March 12, 2018 1:41 am

Barry Ingram

I always wondered, since Kevin Feige is a Trek fan, if the “47” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe one-shot “Item 47” wasn’t just a coincidence.

March 12, 2018 6:38 am

ML31

I hope that ALL Feige would take from the TNG finale is that it is not necessary to kill off characters. Which quite frankly could be taken from nearly any TV show lucky enough to do a finale. The vast majority don’t do that. Besides… The Avengers already ended one of their movies with all of them sitting around a table doing something together. Eating Shawarma. In one of the best, if not THE best, post credit sequence thus far.

March 12, 2018 8:44 am

Arathorn

Yeah I think the ‘killing off’ charters thing is massively over-done in TV/movie series finales. It’s almost an impulse that writers and series developers have to satisfy. I think there are better ways to make a lasting impression on the way out. All Good Things is indeed a great example. Killing characters off is just a lazy way to do it.

March 12, 2018 12:05 pm

ML31

My point was that killing off characters in a series finale really is not as common as the article writer or Feige might think. It’s really not common at least in the finale’s I’ve seen.

March 12, 2018 2:27 pm

precisioncontrol

Just as a warning to everyone: that “8 Casting Decisions That Hurt Star Trek (And 8 That Helped)” listicle is riddled with inaccuracies. On Dax: “her character was much more compelling prior to the symbiont link” — um what? That literally makes no sense. On Wesley: “Whiny, incompetent, and generally a pain to watch”? The first and the third, sure. But Wesley was, if anything, HYPER competent. How many times did a 16-year old improbably save the ship? The actor who played Morn was often “flubbing words”? That last one almost makes me think the list is a parody.

March 12, 2018 9:51 am

Marja

Thanks pc, I don’t need to watch it now :^)
I hate when they think they know and they spout inaccuracies.

March 12, 2018 10:56 am

Phil

Don’t think the article was meant to be a character dissection, it’s more of a casting analysis. As an aside, TNG would have been a helluva lot better had they jettisoned Data early on, as well. Lore was much more interesting.

March 12, 2018 12:53 pm

Tiger2

Uh, no.

March 12, 2018 2:26 pm

ML31

I always thought TNG would be a lot better without Wesley and Troi. They are still two of the most worthless characters in the history of Trek. I never really latched onto the Data character but I think he served a purpose for the show. Because of that I never enjoyed any of the Data centered episodes.

March 12, 2018 2:30 pm

precisioncontrol

Once Yar was killed, they had to keep Troi, otherwise there would only be one female character in the main cast. I happened to enjoy the ridiculous Troi episodes much more than the ridiculous Data episodes, and without her there would be no Lwaxana!

March 13, 2018 8:00 am

ML31

“Once Yar was killed, they had to keep Troi, otherwise there would only be one female character in the main cast.”

And that kind of thinking really doesn’t help the show. And quite frankly it’s the creators own fault if they pigeonhole themselves like that. They came up with the characters. I couldn’t stand Troi and everything associated with her. That includes her mother. But I guess it’s good that someone liked Lwaxana.

March 13, 2018 8:45 am

precisioncontrol

ML31, “that kind of thinking” is how most television shows build their casts: having a balance of male and female characters just broadens the audience and the pallet for storytelling. That’s not unique to Star Trek or even television, really. Sure, TOS had a primarily male main cast, but the planet of the week always had some female characters.

March 13, 2018 8:05 pm

ML31

Precisioncontrol, They do but they were in a situation where one actor walked leaving two females in the main cast. One was a badly thought out character and really should not have been on the bridge at all. At best Troi should have been a recurring character. Showing up only when her skills were needed. Which weren’t very often at all. So if she gets relegated to a day player that leaves one female. If that is a big issue the creators have themselves to blame for that. Now that I think about it, if feels like the first meaty female role in Trek was Kira Nerys.

March 14, 2018 8:05 am

Fritz

Troi was just in the wrong job, I think. As “Face of the Enemy” showed us, she was far more interesting as a spy/undercover agent. Couple that role with ‘first contact specialist,’ and we could’ve seen her in a variety of disguises. More interesting than a head shrinker, anyway.

March 13, 2018 3:46 pm

kmart

Agreed on Troi, but I thought Wesley had the potential to be a viewpoint character, if they had just written him better.

I kinda wished that they had ditched Riker AND Troi, and had DeLancie (as Q or somebody else) as the ship’s exec. Then again, Frakes really brought it in MATTER OF HONOR (maybe the beard really did improve his acting, he seemed to do less of the embarrassing arm and hand acting from s2 onward) and I think his scene with Data at the end of LEGACY is very affecting and effective too, almost like watching Nimoy and Kelley standing over the sleeping Kirk at the end of REQUIEM FOR METHUSELAH.

Since I lost interest in Picard very early on, I always wished that Picard had stayed borgified or dead, so that was my main complaint in later seasons. For being such an evolved future man character, there was an awful lot of the ‘king’ in the way Stewart portrayed Picard, rather than the sort who wears command like a comfortable old jacket (shat’s own words), which is for me the much-preferred Shatner/Brooks mannerism/characterization.

I’ve been rewatching DS9 in recent weeks and the way early-season Brooks can very casually step it up with authority when dealing with people who have issues with things is very much in keeping with the early Kirk (“go to your quarters or I’ll pick you up and carry you there” is still among my favorite low-key Kirk moments.) It’s hard for me to reconcile that with the Sisko who goes nuts over Eddington (who is my favorite character on the show, along with Garak), but I never understood why the maquis weren’t the main antagonists on DS9, because I thought ultimately Sisko should have become maquis.

March 16, 2018 6:33 am

albatrosity

Lore was affably evil and only interesting I think against Data’s personality. But if you think about it, Data’s personality wasn’t all that different from Crusher’s. And Troi was just there and Wesley was annoying. At least Discovery’s characters were compelling, even if they were bogged down in too much plot and at times inconsistent motivations. And Saru should’ve been fired for his stunt on Pahvo. But anyway you right that TNG’s characters weren’t all that, despite it being the most popular Trek ever.

March 13, 2018 6:11 am

Mirror Galt

Interesting, the season finale for Star Trek Discoovery is cited as an influence on The Second Emoji Movie and Underworld: Return of the Lycans.